


Pumpkin Ale: Or, The Many Horrors in Ichabod Crane's Life

by ljs



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2361890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag for 2 x 01, "This is War."</p>
<p>
  <i>Crane looked down at the beverage in front of him with unconcealed horror. While he could not blame himself for a general sense of distress – what with apocalypse being orchestrated by his own son the Horseman of War, his wife off somewhere with the Headless Horseman, his recent if short-lived incarceration in a wooden root-filled coffin by the previously mentioned son, and his fellow Witness only just been rescued from Purgatory – there was a limit of monstrosity which he could tolerate.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pumpkin Ale: Or, The Many Horrors in Ichabod Crane's Life

Crane looked down at the beverage in front of him with unconcealed horror. While he could not blame himself for a general sense of distress – what with apocalypse being orchestrated by his own son the Horseman of War, his wife off somewhere with the Headless Horseman, his recent if short-lived incarceration in a wooden root-filled coffin by the previously mentioned son, and his fellow Witness only just been rescued from Purgatory – there was a limit of monstrosity which he could tolerate.

“Harvest. Pumpkin. Ale,” he said, giving each word the appalled weight it deserved.

Miss Mills, perching herself on a very high bar stool in this quiet pub, grinned at him. “ _Samuel Adams_ Harvest Pumpkin Ale, in fact!”

Crane waved this aside. “I don’t care to discuss Adams the maltster. How has this disgusting concoction managed to survive the centuries when so much good has been lost?” 

Miss Mills blinked.

“One understands,” Crane said, elaborating on his theme, “that antiquated notions of courtesy, joined as they so often were to institutions perpetuating inequality, might go by the wayside. One understands that the convenience of internal combustion might be a suitable counterweight for the inconvenience of polluted air. But why, why, _why_ has pumpkin ale remained?”

“There was pumpkin ale back in your day?” she ventured.

Crane harrumphed. “Of course there was. What else would one do with the pestilent gourds.”

She began to laugh. The lieutenant had a lovely laugh, one he occasionally feared would be lost in the difficulties and evils that made up their work and life together; therefore, he didn’t mind being so often the source of amusement, even when he didn’t intend to create it. He put aside his irritation and enjoyed it, let it warm him.

He hadn’t fully realized how cold he’d felt since that first trip to Purgatory. Katrina’s hand had been cold in his when he’d left Miss Mills behind that first time. And the ground had been so cold, so cold, and the fire so hellish – 

Still laughing, she put her hand over his and directed his movements until he was holding the glass. “Drink, Crane,” she said.

“Too dangerous. We might still be in Purgatory,” he said darkly.

“We’re not. Go ahead, drink your beer before Jenny gets back and takes it.”

“That is an inducement to delay rather than hurry.”

“Crane.” Her fingers tightened on his in a pleasurable warning.

He took a deep breath, and caught the aroma of spices, ginger and cinnamon and nutmeg. “Oh, well, fine. At your command, Lieutenant.”

She didn’t reply to that gibe. Instead her fingers moved on his just far enough to tell the bones. Then, letting go, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, okay?”

So many things in this time he didn’t want to do, so many feelings he didn’t want to have, so many foul tastes in the world. Smiling a little grimly, he lifted the glass and took a long drink, letting the spices and alcohol do their work – letting them warm him.

It wasn’t unduly horrible, he supposed.

“At your command,” he said to her again, and while she laughed again, sweet and sharp, he took another drink.


End file.
